On her way out of the Garden Club’s room, Sunset Shimmer waved goodbye to Wallflower Blush. Good to see her settling in well, and they already had seven members. And stemming out of that incident, as it were…
“Greetings!” Trixie called as she met Sunset walking down the hallway. “The Great and Powerful Trixie requires a Great and Powerful Snack before Dance Club practice. Do you want to come along to the vending machines?”
Trixie had proven an unexpected friend, but they understood each other. Like now, where Trixie obviously had her mind set on one particular thing. “What’ll you get?” Sunset asked anyway.
“There is no proper sustenance in these instances aside from peanut butter crackers. May Trixie treat you to a package?”
“Thanks, but I have to get to work at the sushi place soon.”
With a sharp nod, Trixie stopped at the machine, deposited her coin, and punched in C8, setting the metal coil into tantalizingly slow motion, the crackers inching their way toward dropping into Trixie’s eagerly waiting hands.
It stopped.
“Curse you!” Trixie shouted, beating both fists against the glass. The crackers didn’t budge. She started wedging her arm into the thin crack between the machine and wall. “Help Trixie tip this thing over!”
Sunset shook her head. “There are better ways. Look, just call the number on the machine—”
“You’re right! There are better ways!” Trixie squared herself in front of her enemy, cracking her knuckles. “Remember when Trixie’s magic worked for real that time she teleported you out of the room Wallflower locked you in?”
“Yes, but that worked by exchanging places—”
A puff of smoke, and on the floor beside Sunset sat the package of crackers. Inside the machine hung Trixie, her arms tangled in racks C1 through C7. Her face blazed red for a moment, but then she fumbled with her left hand at the rest of the peanut butter crackers in rack C8. She did manage to knock the remainder down the chute. “You will save those for Trixie!”
Yeah, she’d probably gone through enough trouble to earn them.
“And get Trixie out of here!”
Sunset did some quick mental math. “It would cost twenty-three dollars to release your arms and feet.”
“Isn’t Trixie well worth it? Besides, you only have to free Trixie’s arms so she can cast the spell again.”
Sunset frowned. “Still, eighteen dollars. I don’t have that much on me.”
Trixie sighed at the lemon cookies looming over her right shoulder. Then she looked the other way and grimaced. “Gross, are those pimiento cheese sandwiches?” She took a deep breath. “Snails!” she screeched.
“Yes, my queen?” sounded from next to Sunset, somehow just before Snails shot over in a dust cloud.
Trixe cleared her throat. “Free Trixie’s leg so she can shake her change purse loose. Then you’ll have enough to buy her freedom.”
He gave a sharp nod and crammed his arm through the door, hopefully not breaking all the crackers in the process. As he stuck his tongue out the side of his mouth, he groped around, finally grabbing her shoe’s heel and giving it a firm tug. “Can’t move it,” he grunted. It was pretty far to the side and awkward to reach.
“See if you can knock Trixie’s purse down directly,” she said. Without being able to see what he was doing, Snails grabbed onto Trixie’s shin higher and higher to pull more of his arm in the machine. Her cheeks turned red. “If you go above Trixie’s knee, she will murder you in the most violent fashion.”
He’d probably consider that a fair trade. But then he wheezed. “My shoulder’s caught.”
Sunset’s forehead thunked against the glass, and after a moment of finding her center, she dug into her pocket. “Okay, maybe this will be enough.” She stuck two dollars in to buy an energy drink and Trixie’s right hand. Then another dollar for a pouch of salted peanuts and Trixie’s right wrist. The last dollar purchased some raisins and Trixie’s left hand. “That’s all I’ve got.”
“You?” Trixie said to Snails.
“Nothin’,” he mumbled.
Trixie gritted her teeth. “Alright. I hope this will be enough to swap places back.” With what little space the machine allowed her, she waved her hands, and while Sunset didn’t know how or why Trixie’s brand of magic actually worked, the poor girl certainly wouldn’t appreciate the inability to use grandiose gestures.
But flick her wrist she did, and after a puff of smoke, in place of the crackers on the floor sat a bra. Did that mean…?
Sunset covered her mouth with a hand and noticed a peanut-butter-cracker-package-sized rectangle showing through Trixie’s shirt.
Snails began to sweat, and that apparently allowed his arm to slip free. He staggered back.
“Face away from Trixie, Snails, or she will murder you even more violently.” The package of crackers slid down in fits and starts and fell out of her untucked shirt, which… at least it landed in the chute with the rest.
As Snails quickly complied, Rarity came strolling around the corner and jumped at the sight of Trixie’s face mashed against the glass. “Oh my! Can I do something to help?”
“We need another fourteen dollars to get her out,” Sunset said, rolling her eyes at the coin slot.
“Certainly!” Rarity stuffed a bunch of coins in, and one by one, items dropped and Trixie’s arms escaped their confines. “Ooh, is that a pimiento cheese sandwich? That would hit the spot!” Pinkie materialized from nowhere and reached for the energy drink, but fortunately, Rarity slapped her hand. “No!”
In a final swish of Trixie’s arms and another puff of smoke, there she stood next to Sunset. With a smug grin, she plucked out her hard-earned half-dozen cracker packs.
And her bra lay stretched across racks C3 to C5. She breathed a heavy sigh and started feeding her own coins into the slot. “Snails! You keep facing the other way until Trixie has this back on!”
